Databus Issue: 2007 2 05/29/2007
The W.W.W. (Web We Weave)
Michael Schenck CTO
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Reflecting upon the first day of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mentor Project; I am honored to be a participant. I find myself considering the true purpose of my duties as the technology leader for the Konocti Unified School District. For those of you who do not yet know me, or the district I am proud to call home, we are located on the south-east end of beautiful Clear Lake; California’s largest natural lake. The socio-economic status of our community is one of constant change; today about 72% of our 3200 students qualify for free or reduced price lunches. I am proud to have been born and raised in our small, isolated community. Please take a moment to imagine the potential of technology in bridging our “digital divide”.
I am excited to be amidst a 35 million dollar construction project that is bringing a much needed face lift to our entire school district; opportunity for growth is everywhere. As the Director of IT, I am enthusiastic about our network overhaul; converging voice, data, video, security and other services. This will provide “modern” network applications such as Domains, Active Directory and Exchange; streamlining the educational and administrative workflow, the possibilities seem endless. I hope to paint a picture that illustrates the many hidden processes that I happily juggle on a daily (and nightly) basis. Some are not as technical as you may think.
Let us consider the mysterious e-rate program for a moment; the thoughts of flashing, shiny switches and new fiber circuits likely come to mind. I must be honest in saying I spend more energy focusing on contractor relations, implementation time-lines, and cable pathways than the more technical details. At the beginning of a three to four year process creating a new fiber optic back-bone within four of our campuses, I thought “oh good, the 471 is submitted (by our consultant!!), it will all be a cake walk from here.” Then reality set in as I began to realize what MY job would be in this process. Contractors not coordinating appropriately with their sub-contractors would mean either the job is not completed and those “in the trenches” would not have blue-prints or I would fill in the voids; so on the telephone and into meetings I went. Seems simple, dig a few ditches, pull some cable and plug in a few devices – OOPS, we don’t have cabinets to hold the UPS’s, and a crane will need to park where that ditch is being dug, to hoist a new library into place. My role as “project manager” quickly became that of a contractor, building and crane juggler, and not a switch “configurator”. Let’s not get into the complaints of noisy fans, and inconvenience of new server rooms on a campus, much less the need for guaranteed up-time of critical services; no wonder some folks perceive I “don’t do anything”!!
It seems pretty straightforward to bring voice and advanced network services to a new network on the surface. Now, digging into the reality I find myself creating equipment standards and developing budgets to bridge the many gaps along the way. I am sure by the time we are in the middle of implementation and training for our domain controllers, active directory servers and Voice Over IP systems I’ll be off into the next level of planning and budgeting. Today, the reality I live is planning the rollout of phone systems and integration of antiquated workstations into our “shiny new” domain; most of which won’t be completed for a year or two. If implemented properly, these resources will bring many years of increased efficiency and expanded functionality to every participant in our educational process. If gone awry, the potential disasters are tremendous and preferably left unthinkable.
I come back to my analogy of The WWW, most folks would look at WWW and think of the World Wide Web, or the internet; in this context my thoughts are more of the Web We Weave; the complex interrelations of a network upgrade, and delivery of reliable, cost effective services. I long for the days my duties were to re-install Windows 95, or even upgrade to 98SE!! But looking forward, the potentials I bring to the table when my hands REALLY are in 9 places at once are far greater. To envision and understand the “desired state of being” in our technical infrastructure and at the same time synchronize the many players necessary to bring the proper symphony together is a fascinating journey. To all of my peers, keep up the great work; it is a beautiful Web We Weave! To all of my employees, contractors, bosses and consultants, thank you for providing me the opportunity to orchestrate such a beautiful creation.
